Lou used to drink tea and eat chocolate while blogging, but now she's on a weight loss mission to better health for herself. She blogs about gift ideas, weight loss, making money, Arbonne oh and zombies!

Disclosures

I have to add a few disclosures, here is my Amazon affiliate disclosure -

Louanne Cox, owner this website, s a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Category: How to Make Money Online

I have been making money online since 2007 (well I was making a little money before that, but it was only what I called Latte money). In 2007 I started to see the potential that the internet had to provide an income for people.

All of the resources that I use to run this blog (which makes money by the way) are located on my resource page. I’m also going to be adding blog posts to this blog in order to help other people make money online.

I used to run a blog to help people make money on a site called Squidoo which is now long gone. I haven’t really shared any information about earning money since, until now. A lot of people helped me with free advice when I was starting out so this is my way of paying it forward!

How Important is a Keyword Tool Really?

If you’ve read my resource page you’ll know that I use Jaaxy as a keyword tool and you’ll find most people say you need to pay for a keyword tool if you’re serious about making money.

Ready for your mind to be blown? You actually don’t NEED a keyword tool to make money online!

There, I’ve said it!

However, a keyword tool is a great idea and does help you a lot. When I first started making 4 figures a month online I did not use a keyword tool and it was remembering this that made me pause and really think – do you actually need a keyword tool?

I have been debating whether or not you actually need a keyword tool to make money online and I have to say that the jury is out for me.

I must admit I may have been able to make more money with a keyword tool, but on the flip side I could have lost a lot of money. Quite a number of years ago I wrote about something that if I’d used a keyword tool it would have shown no search totals. Basically I was ahead of the crowd and within days I was getting thousands of visitors each day – no joke!

I also looked at the search terms that brought this traffic to me (back in the day when Google gave you a lot more information on this) and decided to write another post which by itself started to make $100s of dollars every month – for just one post -(sometimes it even went into the four figures as well). I decided to check out the keywords and see if I could target some better ones – according to the tool I would be hard pressed to even rank for the keyword phrase (I was number 1 on Google for a long time)! I’m glad I went with what I was seeing and not what a keyword tool told me and I guess that’s the key – know your market and only use Jaaxy (or whichever keyword tool you use) as a tool not the end all and be all of the matter.

Know your market and write for it NOT for what just one of your ‘tools’ says!

About a year ago I discovered how to find the QSR on Google itself instead of using Jaaxy.

I’ve used this along with a few other tips for a few posts and they have performed extremely well in comparison to a couple where I have used Jaaxy. The ideal seems to be using both together, but if you’re starting out you can use these techniques before you fork out for a keyword tool.

I’m just starting to feel that although it’s not very much to spend in comparison to how much money you can earn I’m not so sure that it’s worth it for me – other people will obviously have other results so basically the jury is still out.

How to Find the QSR on Google & Other Tips for Keywords

So if you’ve used Jaaxy you’ll know that they use something called QSR to rank keywords, but you can find this easily yourself simply by using google search.

Basically you put your keyword into google and hit search, next go to the last search page and you’ll see on the image marked 1 a section at the bottom of the page that I’ve highlighted. The number in that paragraph is the QSR, so in this case it’s 280.

The other tip I have relates to the image marked 2. When you put your keyword into Google note what comes up at the bottom of the page (which I’ve highlighted for you), use some of these keyword phrases in your article as sub headings. If I’m doing a fairly small article and don’t want too many I’ll find out the QSR of the phrases and work out what ones to use from that.

Hold the presses, as of January 2018 I’ve cancelled my subscription of Jaaxy! I’m not sure if it’s a good idea or a bad idea.

This certainly goes against everything people usually tell you to do, but the internet changes rapidly and I’ve just got a feeling that it’s not going to impact my earnings by not using it.

I will let you know if I change my mind and start subscribing again.

So what will you do? Continue to use a keyword tool, or try and work without one for a while? I’d love to hear your thoughts below …

Hi I’m Louanne aka Lou16, welcome to my blog! I just wanted to let you know that this post may contain affiliate links which means, at no cost to YOU, that I might receive compensation if you purchase something through a link on my site. In the online world this is called ‘affiliate marketing’ and is a very common way that bloggers make their money, if you want to find out more then check out What is Affiliate Marketing? If you want to see my full affiliate disclosure and the other ‘legal stuff’ then click here.

This simple step will take you to a FREE guide written by Lena Gott who is a blogger that really does know how to get traffic to her blog. If you haven’t heard of her already then head on over to my review of her Traffic Transformation Guide.

Her guide includes three simple steps that will help you to get extra traffic to your blog. I love how she explains things, it’s like she’s sat there talking to you over a cup of coffee (or tea, you know I like my tea!)

Still not sure? Well I could sweeten the deal by offering you a 10% discount, but 10% off free still means its…..free! Seriously what’s not to love.

If you’re thinking there’s got to be a catch no one gives anything worth having away for free, well you’re right sort of.

It IS free, but Lena’s giving you some great nuggets in the hope that you’ll purchase her other book which gives you 21 ways to increase the traffic to your blog. Now you’re under no obligation, but let me tell you the three ‘free’ steps are totally different to the other 21 so…

I guess it’s a great way to give you a taste of what she has to offer because it’s like I say on my resource page sometimes you have to hear the same thing said in a different way before it sinks in. Lena’s way of writing strikes a chord with me, but it may not with you – let me know in either case.

I say let me know because you ARE going to try it out aren’t you? Here’s the link one more time for you (just to save you from having to scroll ALL the way back up the page!

Hi I’m Louanne aka Lou16, welcome to my blog! I just wanted to let you know that this post may contain affiliate links which means, at no cost to YOU, that I might receive compensation if you purchase something through a link on my site. In the online world this is called ‘affiliate marketing’ and is a very common way that bloggers make their money, if you want to find out more then check out What is Affiliate Marketing? If you want to see my full affiliate disclosure and the other ‘legal stuff’ then click here.

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article – more information below.

If you want to see your online income explode then one of the things you’ll need to learn is how to interlink your blog posts.

Interlinking your posts is very important, why I hear you ask. Well if you’ve got someone to one of your posts and then they’ve clicked away you want to make sure that they have either clicked through to buy something (through an affiliate link) or they’ve clicked through to another post on your blog.

There is no point in working to get traffic to your posts if you let it just whiz through and then disappear further down the internet highway. How, where, help!

How & Where to interlink?

There are lots of ways in which you can interlink, the most common and surprisingly effective way is a simple text link. If your blog post is a product review post and the objective is to sell something then a text link to the product in the first paragraph is extremely effective.

You want to sprinkle your links all over your post like breadcrumbs to entice people to weave their way through your blog and make sure that they don’t miss reading anything that would interest them.

I’ve put those last words in bold because they are important – you need to be constantly thinking of the reader. If they are interested in scarves then you want to make sure that the post links out to all of your posts about scarves, but NOT your posts on zombies because really it’s about what you know they’re interested in not the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon!

Having said that if they’ve come to a post about purple scarves and you happen to have one on purple hats or bags you could link to those as well. This is because they are the same color and it’s another way of adding the color to your wardrobe using accessories which could be why they’re looking for the purple scarf.

I had a boss once who said to us the best customer service is about selling the customer everything they need, but nothing they don’t. It’s not about getting your stats right it’s about making sure your customer is happy. Happy customer = repeat customer and a very happy customer = referring customer. You want both.

Another way of adding a link is by linking your images – I usually use this to link to affiliate products as opposed to other posts, but you could try this technique.

Easy Product Displays Can Help With Interlinking

Have you heard of Easy Product Displays or EPD? The idea behind them initially was to build HTML displays for selling products, but you can use them to interlink as well.

I have used them in a couple of ways, this image is a screenshot from one of my other websites –

This image is an example of how I use EPD in place of a related post plugin. The related post plugin is a time saver and can be good, but sometimes you want to micro-manage which posts are used and also make sure that the images look good.

The image above is at the bottom of a post on Gothic Valentine’s Day Cards which is why I have included Geeky Valentine’s Day Cards & Zombie Valentine’s Day Cards at the bottom. I also wanted to show them that you can also get some great Gothic Birthday Cards (after all if they’re sending someone a Valentine’s Day card they’re probably going to send them a birthday card too don’t you think?)

Another way of interlinking with EPD is by teasing with a little bit of text from the post you’re linking to which (you hope) will entice people to click on it. You can see this idea on my Snow White Figurine blog post –

This post was the perfect opportunity to link to a blog post on Snow White Christmas ornaments and EPD allowed me to create a display with an image and the first lines of the post.

What Else to Interlink?

You don’t have to just link out to blog posts, you can also interlink throughout your blog to category pages and tag pages. Using text links is probably the easiest and best way of doing this.

An example may be when you’re writing about How to Defeat a Zombie, you could talk about zombies and say something like – As you know zombies are pretty resilient and just keep going and going even if they’re leaving their entrails behind and are only able to shuffle, so how do you stop them? If you’ve watched any zombie movie you will know that you need to strike at their head in order to be successful.

The blue word could be interlinked with the zombie category page, while you could interlink the green words to a tag page for zombie movies (if you have one).

Remind Me Why Interlinking is Good Again

Not only does interlinking help keep the reader on your blog so that you can make sure they get all the information they want it also sends signals to Google. If Google sees a lot of interlinking they can work out that you have a lot of relevant information and that you are more of an authority on your subject.

The main reason should always be to provide a great experience for your reader, but the fact that Google loves it too is definitely a bonus!

Are You Interlinking Within Your Blog?

If you’re not doing so at the moment, I hope you will be after reading this post. I’m also curious as to which of these techniques you use and whether you have any more to share.

Hi I’m Louanne aka Lou16, welcome to my blog! I just wanted to let you know that this post may contain affiliate links which means, at no cost to YOU, that I might receive compensation if you purchase something through a link on my site. In the online world this is called ‘affiliate marketing’ and is a very common way that bloggers make their money, if you want to find out more then check out What is Affiliate Marketing? If you want to see my full affiliate disclosure and the other ‘legal stuff’ then click here.

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article – more information below.

I must admit when I first heard of the term affiliate marketing many moons ago I thought it was something like pyramid schemes of MLM – nothing could be further from the truth! Affiliate marketing is basically the internet’s version of a salesperson paid on commission.

I bet you didn’t think I’d sum it up quite so quickly did you? Well I will elaborate because I am known to enjoy talking and I’d hate to let anyone down by not waffling on a little bit 🙂

I’m sure you’ve heard of Amazon – one of the biggest online marketplaces – well they actually ’employ’ affiliates and are generally a blogger’s biggest source of affiliate income (depending on the niche and whether or not the blogger lives in a nexus state, but I don’t want to get too bogged down!). This means that if I decide to write a post about my favorite labeling machine I can link to it on Amazon and if you realize that you really need one to you can click on the link and I’ll be paid a small commission because I sent you to Amazon. Simple really isn’t it?

Now Amazon is far from the only affiliate around, many companies who sell things online will have an affiliate program either run by themselves or run by companies who specialize in running affiliates on behalf of companies.

There are also a few companies who let you earn affiliate commission without even having a blog, these are used by influencers who sell via their email list or their social media accounts.

If you have any questions then please ask away, I’ll try to answer them promptly and if the answer isn’t straight forward then you may just inspire a new blog post 🙂

Hi I’m Louanne aka Lou16, welcome to my blog! I just wanted to let you know that this post may contain affiliate links which means, at no cost to YOU, that I might receive compensation if you purchase something through a link on my site. In the online world this is called ‘affiliate marketing’ and is a very common way that bloggers make their money, if you want to find out more then check out What is Affiliate Marketing? If you want to see my full affiliate disclosure and the other ‘legal stuff’ then click here.